Natalie Crick

Night Fires

It is night.

Smoke curls around me,

Enveloping in it’s touch, sustaining

A soft drifting of thought,

Languid spell of memory.

I wish it were always like this,

Moonlight reaching into every corner,

Burning it raw.

My withered eyes are like

Cherry stones lamenting

Their lost sweetness,

Singing like a shadow.

Speechless.

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Plums at Night

The night is plum-dark.

Horses hang in the depths of sleep,

Haunches gleaming blue-black as

Dripping dusky fruit,

Skin enticing touch,

Misted by the press of my thumb.

I want to bite right down

To the hard grooved core,

Flesh dense as

Blood in lungs,

Pulse of the heart

Throbbing to be licked,

Thirst and murmur and desire

Rolling the tongue as the

Horse’s eyes

Turn to their whites in

Fright.

Wide and open as a cage

In the belly of the night,

Asking: ‘Do I dare?’

 

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Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of magazines including Interpreters House, The Penwood  Review, Ink in Thirds, Rust and Moth and The Chiron Review. This year her poem, ‘Sunday School’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.